Your Dreams Are Mine Now

by Ravinder Singh

  Between these two spaces, amid the lighted darkness, was a new pair of lovebirds that continued to perch themselves on the motorbike and to savour the beauty of the moment. There was no one around them. They had the much-needed privacy. Arjun had moved his hand over Rupali’s wrist and slid it down, making space for it in her palm. The touch was sensuous. It had triggered an adrenaline rush within Rupali. Yet she didn’t pull her hand back. No one said anything. Rupali didn’t even look at Arjun and let him do whatever was on his mind. She had partly surrendered herself. It wasn’t just the touch of Arjun whom she had known for the past few months, it was also the touch of a man with whom she wanted to live the rest of her life.

  Her heartbeat quickened. Arjun’s forefinger made random circles inside her palm. It tickled her. He opened her fingers and then his fingers moved in between their gaps and held her hand tightly. It was a divine union. Arjun then raised their hands, still in each other’s grip, close to his face. They were looking into each other’s eyes—Arjun staring into hers. Rupali’s heart sank when she could feel Arjun’s breath falling on the back of her hand.

  An aircraft flew over their heads, making a deafening noise. The wheels came down right above their heads; something that Rupali had waited to see for so long. But when it happened this time, Rupali was lost in living that moment when she felt Arjun’s lips on the back of her hand and then of her fingers.

  Rupali rested her head on Arjun’s shoulder. The two of them watched a few more planes land. The array of open window shades, the well-lit interiors of the plane, along with the flashing wing and tail lights had made the airplane all the more spectacular. It was very exciting for them to see it land on a runway that was illuminated with stunning lights. At times, just before the plane made contact with the ground, the exhaust of heated air from the rear of the plane created a mirage-like effect, making the airstrip lights float, though only momentarily.

  Hand in hand, Arjun and Rupali kept watching the spectacular view for a long time. They knew that this time would never come back. There is never a next time for the first proposal of anyone’s life!

  It is New Year’s Eve. The girls from the hostel have had their way and managed to stay out till late in the night. A combination of emotional drama and gifts has worked to bribe the hostel gatekeepers. Outside, in the city, they are now celebrating New Year’s Eve together.

  But Rupali isn’t with them. Far away from the hustle and bustle of the cheering city gearing up to welcome the New Year, she is taking a leisurely walk with Arjun behind the college block. This is an isolated street, one that leads to the trees that mark the dead end of the campus in the northern direction. Yet it’s safe. During the semesters many boys and a few girls from their hostels come here to booze and fag. Being here has always meant being in the lap of nature. Only college students have had access to this zone. The beauty of this place is that it is never crowded, but then, at any time of the day, one can see a few faces relaxing in their own way.

  But this evening is different. The semester break is on and there is no one here at this time of the night. The place is dead silent. As they walk, Arjun and Rupali get their much-needed privacy. To add to it is the layer of fog in the air that has dimmed the effect of the white streetlights glowing overhead. Visibility is limited to a few metres. It’s like a white night. The sound of insects far away in the woods makes the place a bit spooky. Rupali moves as close to Arjun as possible to feel safer.

  It’s been a little more than twenty-four hours since she confessed her love to Arjun. After spending a very special night talking on the phone and then spending a whole day together, this is the first moment of privacy bestowed to them by Mother Nature. They know that it’s quite late for them to be here. But they find each other’s company so addictive that they want to delay their goodbyes for as long as possible. They are not going to get such moments in isolation again. The vacations have come to an end. The college will reopen in a day’s time and, from the following night, the hostel will be crammed again with students.

  Arjun has got something for her. He slides his hand into his pocket. Rupali anxiously waits for him to pull his hand out.

  It’s a pendant. A heart-shaped one.

  Rupali’s eyes glitter looking at it. ‘For me?’ she asks smiling. Arjun nods.

  ‘It’s lovely,’ she says while running her fingers over it after which she turns her back towards Arjun and lifts her hair from over the collar of her jacket.

  Arjun accepts her invitation to clasp the pendant around her neck. When it’s done, Rupali turns back towards him and looks at her pendant.

  ‘This really looks nice! Thank you!’ she says without looking at him. His eyes are glued to her new accessory.

  Some time pass and they chose to take a walk.

  So much has changed in our lives in this semester break,’ Arjun says.

  Rupali wonders how the days that she had thought would be the most difficult to pass, turned out to be the best time of her life on campus so far.

  ‘I am glad I didn’t go home for the vacations,’ Rupali admitted.

  They keep walking. It’s colder towards the trees. The chill in the air makes Arjun long for Rupali’s warmth. He wants to touch her; hold her in his arms. But he also wants to make sure that he doesn’t end up scaring her. For a moment he debates with himself. He knows it is the perfect moment, one that may not come again soon. He doesn’t want to waste it.

  ‘It is fine, we are in love,’ he assures himself and then cautiously makes his move. They have reached the end of the road and ahead of them are the wild bushes. They are about to turn back.

  Rupali also wishes to get intimate. She rubs her hands and hints that she is feeling cold.

  Two anxious hearts are getting ready to discover the next stage of their newly accepted relationship. Their excitement soon gives way to burning passion.

  Right at that moment Rupali feels Arjun’s hand over hers, trying to hold her. Right at that moment she stops. His touch is different tonight. She can feel it. It’s the touch of a man who is craving to express his love in a manner that goes beyond words.

  In that cold insulated night, she too wants to experience it. Without looking at him, she spreads apart her fingers, making way for his fingers to intertwine with hers. It’s a sign for Arjun. All is okay. He begins to rub the back of her hand with his thumb.

  His touch has accelerated her heartbeat. Instead of transforming warmth to her body, Arjun’s physical touch has made her shiver. But then she doesn’t want to leave his hand. She enjoys that moment. She wants to live that sensation of trembling in his arms.

  Arjun reaches out for her other hand. Rupali surrenders herself. They are now facing each other. But she is too shy to look up at him. She is well aware of what’s in his mind. Arjun loosens the grip of his hands and holds her face instead. He looks into her eyes. At that moment Rupali experiences an adrenaline rush. She can’t face him and closes her eyes.

  In the blurry depth of that cold white night, under the last streetlight on the abandoned stretch of the road that leads to the woods, he tries to look at Rupali’s face—in the greatest possible detail. As if he is trying to remember the shape of her fine eyebrows and the slope of her eyelashes. As if he is trying to save a picture of her in his mind. From her chiselled nose his gaze slides down to her lips. He can make out the fragrance.

  He tucks a few strands of her hair behind her right ear and prepares to say something. He is still holding her face between the palms of his hands.

  ‘Rupali . . .’ he says. His voice is husky.

  She hears her name passionately called out by Arjun. But Rupali is in no position to respond. With her eyes still closed, she can make out Arjun’s proximity to her. His breath on her face.

  She sighs in that moment of bliss. Her lips part a bit.

  Arjun is still staring at her face. ‘. . . Rupali . . . I love you. I so do.’

  It’s such bliss to listen to these words. She put her arms around
him. His proximity has made her numb. The New Year is moments away. She is moments away from experiencing the first ever kiss of her life.

  Gosh! This is happening. She knows she isn’t dreaming. It is all for real. She is present in that moment. And she is prepared for it.

  He bends down to kiss her. Arjun closes his eyes and their lips meet. There is an explosion of senses as Arjun goes deeper and sucks on her lower lip as if trying to extract all his share of love from her. He pulls her closer to himself. She tightens her arms around him and kisses him back with equal passion. They are now kissing each other hungrily as if they have waited for this all their lives. The cold, the darkness, the world around them ceases to matter. All they feel is each other—the wetness between their lips.

  Their breathing gets heavier. Their kisses get deeper. And their sighs get louder. It’s a divine moment for them.

  They don’t know how much time has passed. Suddenly, there is the noise of crackers around them. Up above the sheet of fog, the sky of Delhi is full of fireworks.

  The magic of the moment is temporarily broken. They move apart a bit but still have their arms around each other.

  ‘Happy new year!’ Arjun says to a smiling Rupali, and goes back to kissing her.

  Nineteen

  After the vacations, life at DU began with a bang. Auto-rickshaws kept up the buzz by bustling in and out of the hostel campus—similar to how the scene had been more than two weeks ago. While a few students had returned to the campus on the night of 1 January, a majority of them had chosen to come back the next morning. A few, for whom attending classes on the first day after a vacation was the last thing on their mind, took the liberty of arriving only late in the afternoon.

  Greetings and hugs were exchanged all day around the campus. Amidst a mass hostel room-dusting exercise, loud noises and screams intermittently erupted from various floors of the hostel blocks. When it came to backslapping and joking around, the girls’ hostel was no different from the boys’.

  Boxes of homemade sweets and other eatables were passed from room to room, from one hand to another, before they emptied up and made their way to the trash cans.

  But the best of the stuff was always locked in trunks to be savoured later and only with best friends after locking the door—that was the unsaid rule.

  Late in the evening, after the classes of the first day of the second semester got over, Rupali realized that everything had gone back to what it had been like before the vacation. From the day when the hostel had looked abandoned, with only a few girls left behind, to today, the difference was stark.

  Every window on every floor of her hostel was lit once again. Sounds of music erupted in various rooms and floated in the corridors. The hostel mess was full again. No one who had gone on vacation had missed the hostel food. But once in the mess, they began to miss their home-cooked food.

  However, the best part of the day for Rupali was when Saloni knocked at her door. The moment Rupali opened the door they celebrated their reunion with screams and hugs. It was Saloni who screamed louder. She continued to hold her roommate tightly, the two of them rocking in each other’s arms like a swinging pendulum.

  When they both came to rest, Saloni slightly pushed her best friend back to look at her. ‘Kaisi hai tu, meri jaan?’ (How have you been, my darling?)

  Rupali was extremely happy to finally get her roommate and best friend back. She had been waiting for her return since last evening. There was so much she had to share with her, for so much had happened in her life while Saloni was away.

  ‘I’m fine, how was your trip?’ Rupali asked.

  Had Saloni not left the country and gone to Australia with her family for her vacations, she would have been up-to-date with Rupali’s life. But then, had that happened, the two would not have looked forward to having a girly midnight-gossip session. ‘Oh, it was so much fun! I will tell you what I did!’ she smiled and winked.

  Saloni then looked around at their room. Unlike other girls in the hostel, she had been spared the task of dusting and arranging her stuff. Rupali had taken care of it. She was the one who had kept the room neat and tidy.

  They spent some time chit-chatting and randomly gossiping about things that were on top of Saloni’s mind, after which Rupali suggested that she change her clothes so they could go and have their dinner. Saloni was not hungry at all, but she offered to give Rupali company. She opened her bag to pull out her T-shirt and pyjamas.

  ‘Here! This is for you,’ she said as she tossed a brown paper bag on Rupali’s bed.

  ‘What is it?’ Rupali asked as she tore open the packet. ‘Check it out yourself!’ Saloni responded, busy trying to figure out where she had kept her own clothes inside her luggage.

  ‘But there was no need to . . .’ Rupali said, guessing it was a gift for her.

  ‘Hello! Madam!’ Saloni shouted back. ‘I didn’t spend my money on you! Baap ke paison se liya hai. This is all from my dad’s money. So chill!’

  ‘Why do you treat your father like that?’ Rupali expressed concern and, as usual, Saloni didn’t bother to answer her.

  She then turned her attention to the bag and began pulling out the clothes inside it. There was a navy blue sweatshirt, a bottle of perfume and two pairs of lingerie—one red and one black.

  Looking at the flimsy underwear Rupali exclaimed in shock, ‘Haww! How could you get me this!’ She was staring at a black lacy G-string. She felt shy even looking at it, so she immediately threw it back into the bag.

  Watching her reaction, Saloni burst out laughing. She walked up to her and said, ‘Come on! Isn’t it sexy?’, and pulled it out of the paper bag again. ‘Why don’t you try it on and show me?’ she asked as she brandished it in front of Rupali.

  ‘I call it lack of cloth!’ Rupali said bluntly.

  Saloni burst into a laugh again. ‘No, stupid, these are in fashion. The ones that I’ve got for you are not available in India. Ek to mein tere liye le ke aai. Since I have got it especially for you, you will have to accept it.’

  Rupali knew she was in trouble. Her roommate had not yet given up on her pledge to transform her into a modern Delhi girl. While she had been successful in moving her from salwar kameez to capris and sleeveless tops, and Rupali knew she wanted her to wear shorts, never in her wildest imagination had Rupali thought that her roommate would someday insist on what she should wear inside!

  But she also knew that Saloni would not listen to her. She didn’t want to offend her friend, as it was a gift she had bought for her. So she agreed to wear the G-string but on one condition—that there was no way she was going to try it in front of her; something Saloni was so comfortable doing openly in their room.

  Rupali smiled. ‘Okay, madam, you win! Now let’s go for dinner or I’ll go off to sleep!’

  Post dinner, after a long leisurely walk in the cold night, during which they interacted with a few other girls from their batch, the roommates were back in their room. Saloni looked at her watch. It was almost midnight. She picked up her facewash kit and went to the washroom.

  When she returned, she freaked out, ‘It’s damn cold!’ She complained about the cold water as soon as she came back to the room. She was shivering and quickly pulled out her towel and wiped her face and hands.

  ‘Ha ha! Welcome back to Delhi from a warm Australia!’ Rupali laughed. Everything in the room, too, was cold. Saloni thought about getting a room heater the very next day and, while saying so, she jumped into Rupali’s bed and slipped inside her blanket. She placed her cold hands over Rupali’s relatively warm ones.

  ‘Ouch!’ Rupali screamed.

  ‘Mazaa aaya?’ Saloni laughed, asking if Rupali had enjoyed her cold touch. She didn’t wait for Rupali to react and asked, ‘So tell me, what’s going on?’

  ‘What do you mean what’s going on?’ Rupali responded.

  ‘What’s the reason for this beautiful glow on your face, sweetheart?’ she asked.

  For a moment Rupali became very conscious, even
though she had already planned to tell everything to Saloni.

  ‘You are the reason. You have come back now, na!’ Rupali reasoned.

  Inside their blanket Saloni immediately tapped Rupali’s hand and said, ‘Give this bullshit to someone else, okay!’ Saloni smiled with confidence. She had guessed it. Something was definitely going on!

  ‘What?’ Rupali attempted a weak defence.

  ‘Achha! With whom were you exchanging SMSes while I was talking to my basketball team friends outside the mess? Haan? Now tell me, what’s going on!’

  ‘Oh, come on! I was talking to my family,’ Rupali lied. Saloni could make that out as Rupali avoided looking into her eyes.

  ‘Really? Then let me check your cell . . .’ saying that, Saloni stretched her arm over Rupali’s body to reach out for her phone on the table.

  ‘No. Please. No!’ Rupali shouted and jumped at once to secure her phone.

  There! She had said it all without saying anything!

  With no iota of doubt in her mind, Saloni laughed slowly, ‘Hey . . . hey . . . Betey! Sab samajh aa raha hai mujhe . . . hey . . . hey.’ She took her time to make use of the opportunity to see her roommate embarrassed at being caught red-handed.

  And Rupali, who all this while had been waiting for the perfect opportunity to share what had happened in her life, never got a chance to do it the right way. She was all prepared to tell her roommate. But the way Saloni bluntly put things together and confronted Rupali, it made her change her mind. Unlike Saloni’s nth crush, this was Rupali’s first. And it was special. And she wanted to reveal it in the right way. But even before she could speak her heart, her roommate had guessed it and ridiculed her. Even though it was in a playful manner, it annoyed her.

  When Rupali tried to speak again, she looked at Saloni, who mischievously kept raising her eyebrows, waiting for her to speak up. Her hesitation had stopped her from speaking.